In his column, “Public Safety, gun safety not mutually exclusive”, appearing January 4th, MDJ columnist has broken his own record at misrepresenting the facts.In the first paragraph has says that NRA president Wayne LaPierre told Americans to buy more guns. He did not make any such statement. Foley than goes on to say “that just happens to be the products sold by the companies his outfit represents.” The NRA represents America’s gun owners, not gun manufacturers.In the second paragraph, he says that LaPierre called for arming every teacher. That is another blatant untruth. At no time did he advocate arming every teacher. What he did advocate was putting trained, armed guards in every school. Something that President Clinton started, though not on such a grand scale. Why do you think private schools have been exempt from Columbine, or Sandy Hook type shootings? They are all guarded and secured, just the same as the private school to which President Obama sends his children.In the third paragraph,. He engages in a little melodrama intended to make LaPierre look like ghoul. He alludes to LaPierre making his first statement “as the babies of Sandy hook were being laid to rest”: Sorry, Kevin, but LaPierre waited a respectful 9 days after the tragedy before making his statement, unlike the gun control crowd, who, like a bunch of vultures, did not even wait 9 hours, much less 9 days, before they verbally hung up the bodies of the 20 babies and pointed to them as proof that we must abolish the 2nd Amendment.His next two paragraphs address public safety, as if it were a given that outlawing guns would make the public safe. Of course, anybody with reasoning power greater than that of a fence post knows that is not true.Try this one on for size, by the way, Kevin. According to the FBI, in 2011, there were 35% more murders committed with hammers, than with rifles. Yet, what is it you want to outlaw? Rifles isn’t it? Why not hammers? Close down the hammer department at Home Depot.Public safety discussions do not end where the topic of guns begins. It ends when you advocate surrendering liberty for a false sense of safety. Our founding fathers warned us about that repeatedly.Foley makes the erroneous statement that you can walk into almost any gun show and buy “assault weapons”, high capacity magazines and ammunition, no questions asked. I will not dignify that by calling it an untruth. I will call it what it is. It is a bald faced lie. Dealers at gun shows are bound by the same regulations requiring background checks, as they are when they are in their places of business. Since Foley is only parroting something he has heard, I have no way of knowing whether he is aware of that or not. But, I repeat, the statement is a lie.Foley, Charles Gregory, is at this time a private citizen and his inane ravings do not, in any way, reflect the belief of most sane people. As to the Second Amendment, it does recognize our unfettered access to weapons. The Second Amendment has been attacked in court many times and is still just as pristine as the day our founding fathers wrote it, without reservation, time limit or expiration date.BTW, how many instances of a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun will it take to convince you? It’s not a “wild west” thing, it is a fact.Your fantasies regarding teachers and people in church are just that. Fantasies, concocted to prove your point. They have no basis in fact. Nobody is advocating arming all the teachers, so your scenario of a gunman killing the teacher first is pure fantasy. You reckon one armed member of the congregation could take out a shooter, but not before some people died. That may be true, but is that not better than all the people being killed? Without a gun, the killer could always toss in a stick of dynamite, or a firebomb and not risk getting shot at all. Your fantasy scenario is invalid.You make a lot of noise about sensible, well thought out laws relating to firearms. We already have such, and you are not satisfied. What you are ignoring is the fact that people who intend to use guns for illegal purposes do not care about the law, whether it is well thought out or not. What you are advocating is restricting the 2nd Amendment rights of over 3 million people for a false sense of safety.Hammers and hand guns are used for killing far more often than rifles. A third of all mass killings are accomplished without guns. The first recorded murder in history was done before guns were ever invented. Extremely strict guns laws in Chicago did not stop 440 school children from being shot, 62 of them fatally, in 2011. Chicago has an assault weapons ban. So does Connecticut.The children of Sandy Hook were not killed by the 2nd Amendment. They were killed by a crazed maniac, who murdered his own mother to gain illegal possession of legal weapons. .Had he not been able to do that, he would have found another way to accomplish what he set out to do. Many have done so in the past. Remember Timothy McVeigh? He had a much higher body count without firing a single shot.

2. Gun shows are responsible for a large number of firearms falling into the hands of criminals.

"False. Contrary to President Clinton’s claims, there is no “gun show loophole.” All commercial arms dealers at gun shows must run background checks, and the only people exempt from them are the small number of non-commercial sellers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, at most 2 percent of guns used by criminals are purchased at gun shows, and most of those were purchased legally by people who passed background checks."

Off Balance

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January 10, 2013

The biggest assault weapon in Cobb County is Kevin Foley's PC.

Pete Borden

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January 08, 2013

@Lib in Cobb. I am going to break a rule and respond to someone who constantly insults and belittles people.

First of all, I am not sure we have any gun control issues. We have people control issues brought on by, for one thing, a climate of violence we have allowed to develop.

Guns, particularly rifles, account for a small percentage of deaths in this country. More people are killed with hammers than with rifles. Yet you are focusing on banning rifles. It makes no sense. why no just ban the high capacity magazines and clips?

I hear you and Kevin talking about sensible gun

control laws. Whose definition of sensible do you want to use? Some folks, you included,want to get rid of all guns. That would be, to you, sensible. To me, we already have sensible gun control laws. It is illegal for a private citizen to own a machine gun, a bazooka or a howitzer.

Sorry, until someone, or some group is willing to address all the issues, included violence in the media we subject our children to, the lack of public awareness and education on mental health, how we apply the laws we already have, how we get guns out of the hands of criminal, we have nothing to talk about. You all want to treat one small symptom of a festering disease. We need tio attack the disease.

What you are suggesting is that we disarm the honest people and leave the dishonest ones armed, because they are not gonna obey the laws anyway.

I am not ready to be left at the mercy of some kid hopped up on dope, brandishing a gun. If you feel safe calling 911, have a ball. The responders can take pictures of your body before you are hauled off to the morgue.

I feel much safer calling on .357 Magnum. Then I will be watching them take the pictures of some thug's body, while the policeman takes my statement.

Lib in Cobb

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January 08, 2013

Pete: I have mentioned a number of times on this site and others that the vast majority of murders in the US are committed with the use of a gun, not a truck filled with a homemade bomb, or bathtubs, or pillows or hammers or laundry baskets. The gun crazies continue to use analogies like the Timothy McVeigh analogy, always useless.

Guns are the weapon of choice in almost 70% of all murders in the US. We have a gun problem, we have a violence problem, we have a gun violence

problem. If 70% of all murders were committed with the use of a tire iron, then we would have a violence with a tire iron problem, that of course is not the case. You continue to miss the big picture because you and the other gun crazies are so caught up in the second amendment and the idea of "Out of my cold dead hands". No one is going to take your damned guns away, although that is not a bad idea. We progressive thinkers are asking for legitimate legislation which will control the problem. Yeah, I know the current gun controls don't work. Tell me something that I don't already know. You have not yet, not one time made any suggestions about how to control the gun violence problem. Just keep yapping about the second.

Lib in Cobb

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January 08, 2013

Pete: I would like to see either from you or your munchkin friend DA any suggestions you may have which will address gun control issues. I have made multiple requests regarding ideas you may have. To date nothing.

You're right the strict gun control laws of Chicago and CT are ineffective. In fact, the patchwork of gun control laws across the US is ineffective.

Pete Borden

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January 07, 2013

Kevin, I always read your columns. Seldom do I agree with them, but I always read them.

I will be most ahppy to explain the misnamedn "

"Gun Show Loophole:, which could just as accrayely be called the "calssified ad loophole", or the "word of mouth loophole", as it relates to private sales of firearms, REGARLDESS OF WHERE THEY OCCUR.

Here, in a nut shell, is the explanation.

"In 33 states, private gun owners are not restricted from selling guns at gun shows. Buyers who purchase guns from individuals are not required to submit to the federal background checks in place for licensed dealers. Critics say that firearms can be obtained illegally as a result, calling it the “gun show loophole.” Proponents of unregulated gun show sales say that there is no loophole; gun owners are simply selling or trading guns at the shows as they would do at their residence."

Kevin Foley

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January 07, 2013

At least you read the column, Pete. It clearly commenced you to cogitatin'.

"Foley makes the erroneous statement that you can walk into almost any gun show and buy “assault weapons”, high capacity magazines and ammunition, no questions asked. I will not dignify that by calling it an untruth. I will call it what it is. It is a bald faced lie."

Please, Pete, explain to the readers what the "gun show loophole" is.

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